Loch Ness Monster’s Oldest Relative Found

It seems Nessie is not the first monster to grace Scottish waters after it emerged a long-lost relative may have been discovered.

This monster lived 170 million years ago, not in Loch Ness, but in a warm shallow sea around what is now the Isle of Skye and has been identified as a new species of ‘ichthyosaur,’ a large dolphin-like marine reptile that grew up to 14 feet long from snout to tail.

A team of palaeontologists – led by the University of Edinburgh and including a consortium of Scottish institutions – studied fossil fragments of skulls, teeth, vertebrae and an upper arm bone discovered on Skye in the past 50 years.

Several of the fossils came from ichthyosaurs, including one previously unknown species, named ‘Dearcmhara shawcrossi.’ Dearcmhara, pronounced ‘jarkvara’, is Scottish Gaelic for marine lizard.